Victorian poetry depicted marriage and spousal relationships as strict and normative, with the participants struggling against rigid social structures. The pressures on women to marry in the era were intense, revealed in the fact that “in 1871 nearly 90 percent of English women between the ages of forty-five and forty-nine were or had been married” (Lewis 3). Divorce carried a heavy social and economic stigma, particularly for women, and prior to 1857 “England was the only Protestant country in Europe that did not have provisions for civil divorce”, making it so that “divorce could only be obtained through private Acts of Parliament” (Cevasco). Additionally even if women were, “under the Divorce Act" (Shanley 9) specific rules were created that allowed for the termination of a marriage. Some of these examples would be "if a husband was physically cruel, incestuous, or bestial in addition to being adulterous could his wife procure a divorce … if she left him without first obtaining a divorce, she was found guilty of desertion and forfeited all claim to a share of his property (even that which she might have brought to the marriage) and to custody of their children” (Shanley 9). Not only was divorce economically and legally unfeasible for women, there was a religious opposition to the very concept of divorce based on an “ecclesiastical doctrine that marriage was indissoluble” (Shanley 9).
Elizabeth Siddal's poetry is a prime example of the negative consequences marriage had for women who were constrained by this institution. Her poems display a blunt vitriol towards her husband, made all the more tragic in her legal, economic, and social inability to separate from the man she grew disillusioned with, comparing him to “the poisonous tree / That stole [her] life away” (“Love and Hate,” 16). The reference to the biblical Tree of Knowledge reveals her anger at external forces separating her from happiness such as religion, advising the audience to “never weep for what cannot be, / for this God has not given” and that “this is only earth … Where true love is not given” (“Dead Love,” 14-18). As a woman and a wife Siddal faced problems other women were suffering from, they were not expected to express their disagreements with their husbands, as “Victorian notions of the ‘perfect woman’ were embedded in a larger middle-class culture which embraced the ‘helpmate’ [companionate] ideal” (Garton 46)―they supported men, who in a companion system were “more, not less, demanding and assertive in the domestic sphere” (Garton 46-47).
George Meredith’s Modern Love depicts the difficulty of divorce: “Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between; / Each wishing for the sword that severs all” (I, 13-16). Even the male party with his legal agency and economic incentive to pursue divorce finds himself unable to envision a time before death when is separated from his wife. He blames himself for the failure of their marriage and sees himself as unworthy of society: “In Love's deep woods, / I dreamt of loyal Life: – The offence is there! … My crime is, that the puppet of a dream, / I plotted to be worthy of the world” (X, 7-14). This submission to social expectations can be explained by the notion that Victorian marriages were based heavily on “the interplay of two models inherited from the past. The first, patriarchal marriage, is reflected in the still familiar stereotype of the grim paterfamilias exacting fearful obedience from wife, children and servants. The second, companionate marriage, was much urged in conduct manuals of the day, illustrated by happy fireside scenes in which young and old enjoyed an easy, if somewhat staid, domestic intimacy” (Tosh 221).
In conforming to these societal expectations, men (like women) were stifled into the Victorian marriage structure, however men found themselves the subject to be lashed out in their poetry: Robert Browning explicitly subverts and mocks the compassionate marriage ideal scene in “Porphyria's Lover,” showing a domestic fireside scene that has gone horribly wrong; Matthew Arnold in “The Buried Life” describes a “war of mocking words” (1) and a relationship in which even lovers “are powerless to reveal / To one another what indeed they feel” (14-15). Through these examples, it is evident that women (and men) struggled with relationship dynamics within their highly restricted society and their social structure continued to remain extremely reliant on such stereotypical models even in the trans-formative Victorian era.
Works Cited
Arnold, Matthew. "The Buried Life" Victorianweb. n.p. Web. 20 January. 2016
Cevasco, G. A. “Divorce.” The 1890’s, An Encyclopedia of British Literature, Art, and Culture. New York: Garland, 1993.
Garton, Stephen. “The Scales of Suffering: Love, Death, and Victorian Masculinity.” Social History 27.1 (2002): 40-58.
Gregory, Melissa V. “Robert Browning and the Lure of the Violent Lyric Voice: Domestic Violence and the Dramatic Monologue.” Victorian Poetry 38.4 (2000): 491-510.
Lewis, Jane. Women in England 1870-1950. Bloomington: Wheatsheaf, 1984.
Siddal, Elizabeth. "Love and Hate". All Poetry. n.p. Web. 14 January. 2016.
Shanley, Mary L. Feminism, Marriage, and the Law in Victorian England. Princeton UP, 1993. 9 Tosh, John. “Review.” Rev.of Cruelty and Companionship: Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Married Life, by James Hammerton. History Workshop 37 (1994): 221-223.
Elizabeth Siddal's poetry is a prime example of the negative consequences marriage had for women who were constrained by this institution. Her poems display a blunt vitriol towards her husband, made all the more tragic in her legal, economic, and social inability to separate from the man she grew disillusioned with, comparing him to “the poisonous tree / That stole [her] life away” (“Love and Hate,” 16). The reference to the biblical Tree of Knowledge reveals her anger at external forces separating her from happiness such as religion, advising the audience to “never weep for what cannot be, / for this God has not given” and that “this is only earth … Where true love is not given” (“Dead Love,” 14-18). As a woman and a wife Siddal faced problems other women were suffering from, they were not expected to express their disagreements with their husbands, as “Victorian notions of the ‘perfect woman’ were embedded in a larger middle-class culture which embraced the ‘helpmate’ [companionate] ideal” (Garton 46)―they supported men, who in a companion system were “more, not less, demanding and assertive in the domestic sphere” (Garton 46-47).
George Meredith’s Modern Love depicts the difficulty of divorce: “Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between; / Each wishing for the sword that severs all” (I, 13-16). Even the male party with his legal agency and economic incentive to pursue divorce finds himself unable to envision a time before death when is separated from his wife. He blames himself for the failure of their marriage and sees himself as unworthy of society: “In Love's deep woods, / I dreamt of loyal Life: – The offence is there! … My crime is, that the puppet of a dream, / I plotted to be worthy of the world” (X, 7-14). This submission to social expectations can be explained by the notion that Victorian marriages were based heavily on “the interplay of two models inherited from the past. The first, patriarchal marriage, is reflected in the still familiar stereotype of the grim paterfamilias exacting fearful obedience from wife, children and servants. The second, companionate marriage, was much urged in conduct manuals of the day, illustrated by happy fireside scenes in which young and old enjoyed an easy, if somewhat staid, domestic intimacy” (Tosh 221).
In conforming to these societal expectations, men (like women) were stifled into the Victorian marriage structure, however men found themselves the subject to be lashed out in their poetry: Robert Browning explicitly subverts and mocks the compassionate marriage ideal scene in “Porphyria's Lover,” showing a domestic fireside scene that has gone horribly wrong; Matthew Arnold in “The Buried Life” describes a “war of mocking words” (1) and a relationship in which even lovers “are powerless to reveal / To one another what indeed they feel” (14-15). Through these examples, it is evident that women (and men) struggled with relationship dynamics within their highly restricted society and their social structure continued to remain extremely reliant on such stereotypical models even in the trans-formative Victorian era.
Works Cited
Arnold, Matthew. "The Buried Life" Victorianweb. n.p. Web. 20 January. 2016
Cevasco, G. A. “Divorce.” The 1890’s, An Encyclopedia of British Literature, Art, and Culture. New York: Garland, 1993.
Garton, Stephen. “The Scales of Suffering: Love, Death, and Victorian Masculinity.” Social History 27.1 (2002): 40-58.
Gregory, Melissa V. “Robert Browning and the Lure of the Violent Lyric Voice: Domestic Violence and the Dramatic Monologue.” Victorian Poetry 38.4 (2000): 491-510.
Lewis, Jane. Women in England 1870-1950. Bloomington: Wheatsheaf, 1984.
Siddal, Elizabeth. "Love and Hate". All Poetry. n.p. Web. 14 January. 2016.
Shanley, Mary L. Feminism, Marriage, and the Law in Victorian England. Princeton UP, 1993. 9
Tosh, John. “Review.” Rev.of Cruelty and Companionship: Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Married Life, by James Hammerton. History Workshop 37 (1994): 221-223.
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